The Polish American Students Association (PASA) presents Daniel Sax, a guest speaker, on "Consider Becoming a Professional Translator!" and "Numerical Precision in Translation: Examples from Polish into English"

This talk will consist of two parts. In the first part, the speaker will share some experience about one possible career path available to students after earning a Slavics degree or similar degree: the option of becoming a professional interpreter/translator, in the US or in Eastern Europe. The speaker will describe his own path into the profession, discuss some possible steps to take post-graduation, share some encouragement and a few anecdotes, and offer to answer questions. In the second half, the speaker will draw attention to one particular issue involved in various types of professional translation work (business, scientific, etc.). This issue is that of numerical precision in translation, illustrated using examples from Polish texts to be translated into English. This will cover subtle differences in typical number formats (e.g. Polish 2,4 tys.  English 2,500), quantifiers (e.g. Polish kilka  English a few / several / a number of), and especially two very Polish-specific words that give rise to an interesting range of problems in translation: kilkanaście (literally ‘several-teen’) and kilkadziesiąt (literally ‘several-tens’). The discussion will focus on practical strategies for fielding such problems in professional translation work. Food will be provided. ============================== Daniel Sax is an American who has been working in Eastern Europe as a translator and translator-trainer for the past 20 years (mainly Warsaw, also Moscow and Budapest). In addition to running his own freelance practice (“Sax Translations”), he is also a part-time academic, having taught numerous courses and workshops in Polish-English translation at Warsaw University and more recently at the Warsaw University of Social Sciences and Humanities (SWPS). He has published about a dozen research papers (some in English, some in Polish) on topics of translation, lexicography, and semantics/pragmatics, and is working on a book on Polish-English translation techniques. He specializes in Polish-English translation, but has also worked as a Russian-English interpreter and dabbled in a bit of Hungarian-English translation. He will be visiting Chicago in connection with the American Translators Association (ATA) annual conference.